Gathering celebrates high school complex

Linda Conner Lambeck

Updated 11:07 pm, Monday, August 19, 2013

Leilanny Dagraca, Juanita Montoya and Angelique Campo walk through the halls of the new Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School follow a grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony in Bridgeport, Conn., Aug. 19, 2013. The three sophomores will be entering the school when the new school year starts on Aug. 29.
Photo: Ned Gerard

Crowds take a tour during the grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony...

Joan DuPont, third from left, tours the new Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School Campus, in Bridgeport, Conn., Aug. 19, 2013. DuPont, who is a member of the Fairchild Wheeler family for whom the school is named, is seen here with, from left, Debbie Calhour-Beal, Lois Libby and Christine Koutras.
Photo: Ned Gerard

Wind turbines fill a breezeway above the main entrance to the new Fairchild Wheeler Interdistrict Magnet School Campus, in Bridgeport, Conn., Aug. 19, 2013. The turbines will provide suplimental electricity that will be used in the school.
Photo: Ned Gerard

BRIDGEPORT -- On what was once underutilized park land in the town of Trumbull, hundreds of students, parents, city and state officials including Gov. Dannel Malloy gathered Monday to celebrate the opening of a $126 million science high school complex, the city's first new high school in 50 years.

"This was not easy, but it was the smart thing to do" Malloy said of a complex, which will bring together students from eight communities to study for science and math careers. "I wish we had gotten here sooner."

Now part of Bridgeport, the Fairchild Wheeler Inter-district Magnet Campus opens on Aug. 29 as three schools in one, each embracing a different branch of science.

Monday was the public's first peek at a facility that has been nearly a decade in the making.

"Awesome," said Liam McNeece, a freshman from Trumbull, standing in the atrium of the 316,000-square-foot structure. McNeece, who wants to study animation in the information technology school, is one of about 200 suburban students who will join 525 city freshmen and sophomores at the new school in its first year.

Planning for the school started in 2004 when Claire Gold, a retired Westport schools superintendent, and Lois Libby, a Sacred Heart University professor, pushed for an interdistrict magnet school that would focus on technology.

Both attended the ribbon-cutting on Monday. So did Joan duPont, the granddaughter of Daniel Fairchild Wheeler, a philanthropist who deeded the 55-acre, wooded parcel to the city nearly a century ago.

The land, located in Trumbull, was willed to Bridgeport as dedicated park land and attached to Beardsley Park until the construction of Route 25 made the parcel hard to access. The city sold the land to the state more than 20 years ago.

Descendents of Wheeler, led by duPont, were all for allowing the city to use the land for a school. Approval from the courts, however, took time. Once that hurdle was jumped, the plan was held up for more than a year by Trumbull officials, who were concerned about the project's impact on zoning, traffic and the environment.

Eventually, the state -- which is footing 95 percent of the construction costs -- redrew the Trumbull-Bridgeport border so that the land would be part of Bridgeport.

In exchange, Trumbull picked up about 20 acres on the east side of Quarry Road. Even then, Trumbull First Selectman Timothy Herbst sued over the matter. When ground was broken on the new school two years ago, Herbst called it premature, and he was still calling for a halt to construction two months later. By December 2011, the suit was withdrawn.

Herbst was absent from the grand opening on Monday, but Trumbull Schools Superintendent Gary Cialfi had a seat on the podium. The first selectmen of Milford and Fairfield were also in attendance. In addition to Bridgeport, the new school will accept students from Easton, Fairfield, Milford, Monroe, Shelton, Stratford and Trumbull.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said what he likes about the school is that it has lived up to its green billing -- not only by having a green roof, wind turbines and solar panels, but by preserving 77 percent of the land surrounding it as open space.

"This is what Bridgeport is capable of," said state Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor, making his second appearance in the city in two days. On Sunday, he attended an open house for Dunbar School.

"This school has some ingenious elements," Pryor said Monday, pointing to the turbines perched above the front entryway to the high school complex.

Designed by JCJ Architects of Hartford and built by Fusco Corp., of Milford, the school was constructed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification standards.

Schools Superintendent Paul Vallas told the crowd that if he contributed anything to the project, which was well underway when he came to the district, it was that the facility has taken shape as three distinct schools, not one. Each wing of the building will be a separate school with a separate principal and faculty. The schools will come together to work on project-based learning activities.

"I think I can handle it," said 14-year-old Benjamin Charley, of Bridgeport, who will be a student at the new school. "I have taken an interest in engineering, so I just really wanted to get in."

"Every child in the state of Connecticut deserves a school like this, regardless of their ZIP code," said Malloy, looking out onto one of the school's green roofs after the ceremony.